


(other men it is believed have seen angels) but I have seen thee and thou art enough

by Kahika



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 10:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18050522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahika/pseuds/Kahika
Summary: After theNormandySR-1 goes down, Ashley's grateful when Garrus takes her in; after all, they both need a friend. Returning the favor takes them halfway across the galaxy.





	(other men it is believed have seen angels) but I have seen thee and thou art enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



> Title quote from George Moore's letter to Lady Emerald Cunard:
>
>> The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it... you and you alone make me feel that I am alive... **Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.**

Ever since landing on the Citadel yesterday, Ashley's felt like she's been in a fog. The adrenaline of the _Normandy_ being attacked has finally faded, and now she doesn't know what to do with herself while she thinks about that compassionate leave they gave her and the brass thinks about reassigning her; she spends long hours walking around the Citadel without taking any of it in. She's not even sure which ward she's in when someone calls her name and she doesn't hear it until it's right behind her.

She turns around to find Garrus, wearing the C-Sec armor she'd met him in and a smile. Normally seeing him causes a warmth in her stomach that she attributes to him being her main competition for sharpshooting on the _Normandy_ , but today her stomach stays cold.

"Almost thought I had the wrong human when you didn't react," he says cheerfully. "I didn't see the _Normandy_ docked."

Lately she's been quick to tears, even if they don't actually fall. Noticing this, he gently touches her shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong?"

It takes a couple of tries to even speak, but eventually she manages to get out, "The _Normandy_ was attacked - destroyed. Shepard is -"

She's mortified that she starts crying - in public, with people around, in front of an old squadmate - but she finds she can't stop it. Garrus stares, then pulls her to the side of the path, murmuring, "It's okay -"

She shakes her head. Nothing about this is okay, and she doesn't know how it ever will be.

" _You're_ okay," he amends it. "You're safe here, Ash."

No one's told her that since they were rescued. She looks up at him, finds that alien face she'd once thought of as all sharp edges is soft with worry and probably his own grief, and buries her face just below his carapace and sobs. To her surprise, he wraps his arms around her, tentative at first but reassuringly solid. He's not exactly the first person she'd thought to seek comfort from but he's here and he's offering it and he might not have seen and heard it like she did but he's feeling the same loss too.

He's _working_ , she's dismayed to realize only when he takes a call on his omni-tool minutes later and says without letting go of her that he just got some bad news and is dealing with a personal issue.

"You don't have to call out of work on my account," she says, after he hangs up.

"Like _I_ want to work after hearing that Shepard's -" He draws back to look at her, though he keeps hold of her arms. "What, missing? Dead?"

"Yeah," she says, for lack of confirmation either way, and she swallows. "I'm pretty sure I was hearing..." God, she doesn't want to say it; she still can't. "I don't know if it was the oxygen line or helmet damage or what," she resorts to.

Garrus rubs one hand over his face. "Spirits," he mutters. "Any other casualties?"

"Twenty unaccounted for," she says, and his eyes widen, aghast. "Pressly, Greico, the Dravens..."

"Twenty," he echoes. "I -" He shakes his head. "I don't want to do this here, do you want to come to my place?"

 

The apartment he shows her into is a studio so small that he doesn't own a couch and his bed faces the kitchen, and it feels smaller because of the conspicuous dent in the wall. He shrugs it off when he catches her looking at it.

"This ward got hit by Sovereign," he says. "The debris has been cleared enough for people to get through, but the Keepers haven't touched the cosmetic fixes yet and builders are in high demand right now. The rent's cheaper with it anyway."

"Are you safe here?"

" _You're_ safe here," he says, which isn't what she was asking, but is still nice to hear. "No one's stupid or desperate enough to try and loot a cop."

She nods, and lets him lead her to sit down on the bed. He opens the fridge, growing dismayed as he looks inside it.

"I don't have anything levo," he says. "I could order -"

"Water's fine," she says.

He gets her a glass of water, then sits at the desk by the window. "Tell me -" He catches himself. "I want to know everything, but if you don't want to -"

"No, it's fine," she says, and she launches into the debrief she's been giving to her superiors. She can disconnect from this a little easier than from his unexpected questions out in public, almost reciting it on autopilot. Garrus doesn't ask questions, just listens with saddening eyes.

"Where are Tali and Liara?" he asks, when she gets to the present day. "And Joker?"

"Tali went back to the Flotilla," she says. "Liara's gone... looking, I guess." She doesn't think Liara's going to like what she finds, if anything. "Joker went home on compassionate leave."

"Okay," he says. "So the rest of the team's okay."

"I wouldn't call crying on the Presidium 'okay'," she says dryly.

"Physically okay," he amends it, brushing his talons against her shoulder. "I don't blame you."

"I just never saw this coming," she says, staring into her glass. "I didn't expect things to end like this - to lose her like this. Up against Saren, sure. But this - this wasn't geth, and it wasn't a Reaper."

"Are they trying to find who did it?"

"Of course, but hell if they're telling me about it."

With a sigh, Garrus gets up and manages to start pacing in the small space. "The best soldier in your marine corps - present company excepted -"

For the first time since the _Normandy_ was attacked, Ashley laughs. She almost doesn't recognize the sound.

"You _are_ a better shot," he points out; a bit unfairly, she thinks, given that Shepard's not - _wasn't _\- a sniper. He continues, "Taken out, whole ship destroyed with a lot of the crew and no leads, after both the Council and the Alliance brush off Sovereign as a ship under Saren's control."__

____

____

"Garrus, I can't handle a conspiracy theory right now."

"Sorry," he says immediately. "I just - I want to be _doing_ something and I latch onto the mystery."

"You're such a _cop_ ," she says. "I wish I was doing something too, but... I don't know _what_ to do any more."

"Does the Alliance have any plans for you?"

"I'm on compassionate leave," she says. "I'm still deciding whether I should go home, like Joker."

He looks at her sideways. "Why not?"

"I don't know that my family gets it," she says. Grieving a person, they understand, but Ashley is grieving her own life, too, the best part of her career to date. She'd been doing _important_ work, she'd had friends of different species, she'd been _worthy_.

Garrus nods. "I get it," he says. "Well, you're welcome to stay here while you figure it out."

She'd had the vague thought that she should find a hotel room, but hadn't been able to face actually doing it. She nods. "You need levo groceries, though."

If Shepard had told her months ago that she would one day be staying with that hotheaded turian cowboy cop for comfort, Ashley would have laughed herself silly. But now there's no Shepard and no laughter, just her and Garrus, sitting around his tiny apartment. He's surprisingly gentle when she cries again (a phrase he uses reminds her of Shepard and sets her off), finding a towel for her tears in lieu of tissues. She's surprised to find that turian cries don't involve tears so much as sounds which stump her translator and which Garrus tries to muffle in his carapace until she realizes what's happening, raises his chin with one hand, and tells him to let it out.

She dozes off leaning against his shoulder, and wakes up the next morning to find herself tucked into bed and Garrus starting to open his eyes in his chair.

"Oh my god," she says, as he stretches out. "Why didn't you just share the bed with me?"

His mandibles flap, and he gestures vaguely. "Didn't think you'd want to."

"I'm a big girl: We can share without it being a _thing_ ," she says, and then wonders: "Unless you're pointy or something?" She's not sure what his body's like under the armor.

"Not _pointy_ ," he splutters, bemused. "But probably a bit harder than you're used to in bed."

Ashley laughs, familiar warmth returning to her gut. It feels a little less foreign than yesterday but still a little too loud and a little too much; at least the second flap of Garrus's mandibles doesn't appear related.

"That is _not_ what I meant and you know it."

"Are you sure? Because I've had some _pretty_ hard guys in bed," she teases.

"I'm not even into humans," he says.

"Good, because I'm not into turians," she says, and wonders at the flip of her stomach. Probably repulsion. "Would have been awkward if it only went one way. So don't do that again."

He takes today off work too ("you wouldn't have needed to if you'd slept in the damn bed"). They order in their meals, watch vids, and occasionally cry, but more than that first day, they just talk. They catch each other up on their lives since defeating Sovereign and Saren, eulogize Shepard and the team, and talk about their families. It almost feels like they're back on the same team again, just working on different floors instead of across the cargo bay from each other - something almost normal to shine through the fog of grief.

Bedtime is less normal, despite her assertion that it can be perfectly normal. Garrus is awkwardly chivalrous, tiptoeing around the apartment while she prays (the image is so hilarious that it's almost more distracting than normal walking) and letting her pick which side of the bed she sleeps on while refusing to say his usual side. Once they're actually in bed, he takes a while to settle, turning and rearranging his limbs. She notices more now than with his little comforting touches that he runs hotter than the humans she's shared a bed with - she can feel him at her back like a person-sized heater.

"Is this a turian thing?" she asks. "The temperature?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I forget humans are cold," he says. "Are you sure I shouldn't -"

"Stay put," she says. "Good night, Garrus."

"Night, Ash."

She wakes up with him pressed warm against her back, his arm slung around her waist, and while it's a little weird from someone she's not interested in, it's also rather nice. She's _needed_ physical contact like this lately. And hey, maybe turians see it as more platonic than humans do. So she doesn't move him nor say anything; she just closes her eyes and enjoys it until he gets up and starts getting ready to return to work. Given his awkwardness last night, she does him the service of not calling him out on it, and he doesn't mention it either.

When he leaves, she's alone for the first time since he found her wandering, but today that feels a little more okay, a little less adrift. She finally goes out for levo groceries, stocking up on basics to the end of the week; surely what to do with her compassionate leave will come to her soon. It occurs to her to start trying to replace the limited personal belongings she'd had onboard the _Normandy_ , too. The Alliance had replaced her gear and her medals, but she still needs some civilian clothing (no matter how infrequently she wears it), her preferred gun cleaning cloths that aren't standard issue, and her favorite personal hygiene items. Thank God she'd managed to bring her omni-tool with her when they evacuated.

With time to kill and little to occupy herself once she's finished shopping (it's not fun for her the way it is for her sisters), she goes for a more aware wander of the Citadel, finding various stages of rebuilding not entirely related to the apparent socioeconomic class of the area. Keepers, she realizes, must have no real sense of money or population. They've cleared the wreckage by the Relay Monument, but she can still see the skid marks where the Mako took its last spin. Kaidan had always mentioned hearing a hum around the statue, and now that she knows it's really a mass relay, she listens out for it, only to hear nothing but a nearby hanar preaching the eventual return of the Protheans. To think this had all started with a Prothean beacon, and now she's lost everyone who fought with her there, from the 212 to Kaidan and Shepard. The rest of the _Normandy_ squad who had been with her on that trip through the Conduit are all scattered too. If it weren't for Garrus, she'd feel like the only one left again.

It's nice to not feel so alone, even though she's physically alone at the moment - she has someone to come back to, who'll come back to her.

  

"That smells amazing," says Garrus, locking the door behind him.

Ashley looks up from his stove. "You can't eat this," she informs him.

"I know, I know," he says. "You come into my house, you make food I can't eat..."

She sticks his tongue out at him, and he laughs as he goes to get changed out of his C-Sec armor. The last couple of days have been an adjustment to seeing him in civilian clothing; he looks smaller and less threatening without the bulk of armor.

Which is good once he starts making his own dinner, because his kitchen is tiny. His obvious familiarity with his space helps them make it work, translating their flow around each other in the field into the limited space in front of the bench and the stove, and he also retrieves some useful cooking implements for her from the shelves she can't reach.

"Now _that_ smells amazing," she says, when whatever it is he's making starts heating up.

"It's a Cipitrine staple that I do a mediocre job of," he says wryly. "It just smells new."

"Can't be worse than the dextro rations you always complained about."

"Look, your requisitions officer just doesn't know where to get the decent dextro supplies."

"Didn't," she says softly. "He's one of the twenty."

He winces. "Damnit."

She can feel herself starting to slip into melancholy, which is dangerous with a hot stove and food she'd rather like not to burn. "Can we talk about something else?"

Garrus pokes at his pot, then launches into a rant about his case. She's pretty sure he skates close to whatever confidentiality rules he has trying to explain it, but once she has the context, he focuses on complaining about his superiors tangling him up in red tape, managing to last until they're both sitting down at his desk to eat.

"I thought I overheard you and Shepard talking about following the rules once," she says.

The mention of Shepard still prompts a moment of silence without discussion, but thankfully also without crying on either side.

"More than once," he admits; she was trying to be generous. "It was easy to talk about following the rules and not letting evil change me when I was outside C-Sec, when I was with a Spectre. But with HQ drilling my shin plates like this - when there aren't really innocents on the line like some of my older cases - it's a lot harder to see the point."

"The point is that that as a C-Sec agent you're supposed to uphold the law, not break it," she says.

"I didn't join up for the law," he snaps. "I joined up to fight injustice. To help people."

A lot of things she knows about him suddenly fall into place, from her first impression of him wanting to investigate Saren against orders to the way he'd acted finding Doctor Saleon. The urge to help people combined with a disregard for the rules is a dangerous combination.

He takes advantage of her silent realization to continue, "If Shepard was here -"

"Shepard's not here," she cuts him off, because the what-ifs are too painful right after losing their Commander. "And you're not a Spectre."

For a moment, Garrus glares at her, but she holds his gaze steady until he's the one to deflate. "I just want to do the right thing for all those people hurt by this drug," he says.

"I know," she says, putting her arm around his carapace; he seems safer to touch now, with his frustration boiling off like her sauce had on the stove. "But do it the right way, so you can keep helping more people."

"Remind me at work tomorrow," he says with a sigh, but he leans into her touch, and she can't bring herself to let go to eat with both hands.

  

She means to remind him when she wakes up in his arms again (Garrus Vakarian, unconscious cuddler, who'd have thought), and she means to remind him when he leaves for the station, but when she opens her messaging app to tell him, she gets an email from Alliance internal comms saying that they've declared Shepard missing in action, and she forwards him that instead.

`fuck` he texts back, the strongest language she's ever read or heard from him, but she really can't blame him.

The rest of the day is a blur, save a few moments like setting off the smoke alarm when she gets distracted making lunch, a call to her mom where she gets very little across after breaking the news, and seeing Anderson and Hackett and a not nearly morose enough Council on the news vids giving canned statements about Shepard. (It's a good thing the screen is holographic, because she attempts to put her fist through it.) She doesn't realize Garrus is home until he accidentally tackles her with a hug.

"You usually have good reflexes," he says above her. "I thought you'd notice me and actually stay up."

His face is very close to hers, his armor just pressing into her clothes. Ashley realizes with a clinical interest that it's been a very long time since she got laid, and figures this and her already on edge emotions are why her body stirs.

"Kind of distracted by my dead Commander," she says, and she pushes his chest for him to get off of her.

He sits up at her side, offering her a hand up which she declines. "I can't believe they're giving up already. It's only been a few days."

"From what I was hearing over the comms, I'd have been looking for a body from when they found us, not a person," she admits.

"If anyone could survive out there, it'd be Shepard," he says.

She shakes her head. "I think... I feel like I knew Shepard's gone," she says. "But 'missing in action' makes it sound like there's the smallest chance Shepard might still be out there somewhere, and I'll never know."

"It's a big public shrug instead of closure."

"Yeah," she says softly. "And I barely knew what to do without closure before they just propped the possibility open and left it like that."

"At least you've still got your military job," he says. "I'm sure wherever you go, whatever unit you end up with, you'll do Shepard proud. The _Normandy_ 's spirit is still with you, even though the crew didn't seem to have historians."

"What?"

He manages to distract her for a moment by talking about turian traditions around full time military historians who record a legion's battle honors, and finally explaining the whole 'spirits' thing he seems to use where humans would call on a deity.

"That's the closure _I'm_ missing," he says, after circling back to the historians. "No one recorded the _Normandy_ 's work properly. I know there were the news vids and the medals and everything, and I tried to do a bit in my spare time on the ship - not that I had much, with everything that poor Mako went through - but it doesn't feel like _enough_. Not for Shepard."

"Nothing does," she agrees. She gazes morosely at the bag holding her new uniforms for a moment, before it occurs to her to offer, "I could help try and record it. If you want."

"Ash, with all due respect, I don't know how helpful that would be," he says. "I'm actually turian and kind of get how they do it, and I'm still not any good at it."

"Okay," she says, mildly impressed by a use of 'with all due respect' that was actually more or less respectful. With a sigh, she leans into his side. "I wish I could help you, Garrus, because being here has helped me." He really does get it in a way her family wouldn't, and the roof over her head's helping her save a few credits after losing most of her personal belongings on the ship.

His mandibles flare, tickling the top of her head. "No, you're helping," he says, sounding genuinely surprised that she'd think otherwise. "I would have hated to hear about what happened alone - probably would've been from the news vids. And besides, with how bad things are at work lately, it's nice having someone to come home to at the end of the day."

"I'm taking over your bachelor pad," she teases him.

"Not with all the dextro food and shelves above your head, you're not."

"Fair point," she concedes. "Besides, your kitchen's too small."

"Hey, we made it work," he says. "Like how we made bed sharing work."

Well, they didn't make cooking together work by snuggling, but she's not about to mention that in the artificial daylight. "Ah, yes, out of desperation."

"By working as a team," he corrects her.

'Teammates' doesn't seem to cover how close they've been getting over the last few days. She shakes her head. "As friends."

  

His next shift is an earlier one, so for the first time in days, Ashley wakes up alone. She contacts the rest of the team: Joker calls it "bullshit" but seems resigned, Tali's upset to the point of considering putting off her adulthood ceremony, Wrex is still in denial. Liara doesn't reply, and not for the first time, Ashley wonders where she went in such a hurry and what she's doing. 

This time she catches Garrus stalking in, far earlier than expected. 

"What are you doing here?" she asks. It's not like he usually comes home for lunch or anything. 

"I quit." 

She stares. "I'm sorry, what?" 

"I quit without notice," he only barely clarifies. 

"Okay," she says. " _Why_?" 

"I'm fed up with the red tape," he says, which, okay, has been a common theme in his work stories the last couple of days, but this seems extreme. "Dad didn't like the way I dealt with a suspect yesterday -" 

" _Garrus_ -" 

"But it got me the name of where that drug's coming from," he says. "So I told Dad I'm not his problem any more." 

Exasperated, Ashley tries to put some distance between them in the tiny apartment, but turns back to him to ask, "So what exactly are you planning to _do_ with where that supplier is?" 

"I'm going out there," he says. "To Omega. To do what we would have done if we were on the _Normandy_." 

He dealt with his suspect yesterday - his one word reply to her passing on the news about Shepard being declared missing in action had been at the start of his shift. He doesn't have closure. His attempts at recording history don't feel like enough to mourn Shepard. _Jesus_ , this is not a pretty picture. "Garrus, this isn't what Shepard would have -" 

"It's not about Shepard!" he snaps, which is the most ridiculous thing she's heard today. "This is about making a difference, about justice, and doing what those cowards at C-Sec won't do, and - and public health!" 

"Don't pretend it's _just_ that, because you're not doing a great job of it," she retorts, and he klacks his mandibles at her, whatever the hell that means. "And it's Omega, don't just go off on your own -" 

"In case you haven't noticed I don't have a crew or -" 

"Then take me with you." 

For a long moment, he simply stares, before finally asking, "What?" 

It had been a spur of the moment idea thrown out to stall him, but it's starting to feel weirdly plausible. "It's Omega. You need backup out there. I still have leave - either you find someone to work with before I go, or you come back here, or to Palaven, or somewhere you can find some structure." 

Garrus opens his mouth, shuts it, stares at her some more, then crosses the apartment so he can press his forehead against hers. "Okay." 

She gestures at his face, very close to hers, even accounting for the sleep cuddling lately. "What are you doing, what is this?" 

His mandibles flap, and he recoils. "It's nothing. But... Are you serious about coming with me?" 

"If it stops you from getting yourself killed on an impulse, then yeah," she says. "It's the least I can do after you let me stay." 

The stunned look in his eyes slowly fades into wonder, and he nods. "Thank you." 

A little uncomfortable with this attention, she shrugs. "I'm not losing another friend this soon after..." This isn't entirely about Shepard for her either. "After everyone scattered." 

"Then I'll try not to get lost." 

  

Their trip falls into place within a couple of days. He books himself a one way ticket to Omega and a return trip for her, and they get some gear together that isn't either C-Sec or military issued, Garrus showing her some of his favorite multispecies weapon and armor vendors on the Citadel. It doesn't entirely feel real until they're on the first ship of their journey, the Citadel falling away from her feet. She'd kept hoping he'd realize he's being insane and change his mind and beg for his job back, but she should have known he's too stubborn for that. 

(The morning they take off, he holds her closer in his bed than ever before.) 

He's never really known what to do when she prays. The first time he came across her on her knees on the _Normandy_ , he tried to talk to her, looked mildly offended that she waved him off, but left accordingly. Other times on the ship, he saw her from a distance then turned around and walked away. The last few days, he attempted to give her silence since his apartment was too small to give her space, but looked visibly uncomfortable out of the corner of her eye. 

On this skybus, her hand doesn't make it to the start of the Sign of the Cross before he asks, "When you're down there, what are you doing?" When she looks up at him, he hastily adds, "Sorry - just, I've seen you do this every night." 

"I'm praying," she says, and in case the concept is unfamiliar - he'd been quick to clarify that spirits as turians see them are called upon as witness more than for intercession - she explains, "Thanking God for His blessings, asking Him to grant peace to those who are with Him now." 

"Oh," says Garrus, and she thinks that's the end of it, but just before she attempts to start again, he asks, "Can you add something for me?" 

"What, like put in a good word for you?" 

"No: Thank Him for me," he says. "Thank Him for bringing you back safely from the attack, because you're a good friend, Ash." 

For a moment, she's stunned into silence, but then she nods. "I will. You know, you're a pretty good friend yourself." 

He waves her off, getting into the bed they're sharing, and waits until she gets up again to say, "Sorry this bed's so small. This was the last bed left on short notice." 

"It's fine," she says. "Not like we haven't shared this small a space before." 

His mandibles flap as she joins him in bed, her head very close to his. "Yeah, I guess we have." 

It's kind of funny to watch him stew in the realization that she noticed the cuddling, but she eventually says, "I don't mind," her voice gentle. "I thought it was kind of cute and probably means something different to you." 

"Yeah," he says quickly. "Just - comfort. I don't know if you've noticed, but you move around more in your sleep now than you did in the _Normandy_ crew quarters." 

She _hadn't _noticed that, more focused on her dreams of smoke and breathlessness and Shepard falling further and further away from her.__

"You settled down when I snuggled up," he continues. "I'm sorry, I should have asked -" 

"Garrus," she says, putting an arm around his waist, and his mouth shuts. "It's okay." 

"Are you sure?" 

"After... After losing the _Normandy_ ," she says, trusting him to fill in every _one_ they've lost with it too, "I think even I can admit I need a hug." 

He melts with relief, embracing her in return. "To be honest, so do I." 

"There we go, then," she says. "Good night, Garrus." 

"Night, Ash." 

They fall asleep like that, and it's the most restful sleep Ashley's had since the _Normandy_ went down, her dreams finally more peaceful and ordinary. 

  

The closer they get to Omega, the rougher their fellow passengers get, culminating in seeing a batarian mugging an elderly human couple when they step foot on the station. Garrus, being closer, knocks the mugger out, and as Ashley helps the woman to her feet, they call them angels, and he looks a little too thoughtful.

"Ash," he says. "What are angels to humans?" 

"God's messengers, protectors of humans, guidance," she comes up with. "What are you thinking, Garrus?" 

"Still mulling it over," he says. "I'll figure out if it makes sense later. Shall we?" 

The extranet had advised going to a bar called Afterlife, apparently the center of life on the station, to find initial leads on housing and jobs; people had also mentioned Afterlife was a hotbed of gangs and crime. They've barely sat down with their drinks when they overhear the crash of armor and someone heavy and a glass breaking on the floor, with a threat to go with it. 

She turns around to find a krogan standing over a turian man. This time she's sitting closer, and she throws her glass into the krogan's face before shoving him away from the man. 

"Thank you," he says, as the krogan tries to wipe tequila and glass shards out of his face and leaves. "But he's got friends." 

"We can take them," Garrus replies, pulling the man upright. "What's his problem, anyway?" 

"I'm late on my payments," he says, and at their blank looks adds, "For protection. What, your district doesn't have that?" 

"We're new in town," Ashley explains. 

"Then leave before we make you." 

It's the same krogan from before; this time he has a couple of humans and a salarian with him in matching armor. She and Garrus exchange glances, and with a last minute assist from the protection racket's victim, manage to knock out all four. They've worked well together for a while now, initially forced into the same shore parties by Shepard and then figuring out how to use their similar skillsets to complement rather than interfere with each other's work, but it feels different with just the two of them, no Shepard calling the shots and no backup. 

"Spirits," says the other guy, his mandibles flared, periodically glancing back at the goons as if afraid they'll wake up again. "I - thank you again." 

"I don't like how they treated you," Garrus says plainly. "Let's find somewhere else for you to tell us about this place." 

"Okay," he says, stepping gingerly around the unconscious gangsters on the floor. "Um, I'm Lantar - Lantar Sidonis." 

"Garrus Vakarian." 

"Ashley," she offers. 

Sidonis gives her a puzzled look. "Humans have family names, right?" 

Garrus opens his mouth, but in a moment of brief panic at the thought of her superiors somehow finding out she's here, she blurts out the surname of an old squadmate, "Vega." He raises a browplate, but doesn't comment. 

"Vega and Vakarian," says Sidonis. "Right. Out this way..." 

Overlooking the Omega skyline, Sidonis explains the way things are on Omega. Garrus asks the occasional question about the drug trade and asks if the shakedown they'd seen on the docks was typical, but otherwise, he just keeps drawing out a fuller, dirtier picture and Sidonis's own frustration with the situation. It occurs to Ashley that maybe, just maybe, this might just be one of his cop skills, when he's dealing with victims and witnesses he has compassion for instead of the criminals he wants to punish. 

"This is bigger than the drug, Ash," Garrus finally says to her. "But it's this bad because there's no rules, so we could do something about it." 

"With three people?" Sidonis asks skeptically. 

"Two," says Ashley, giving Garrus a pointed look. "I'm just helping Garrus settle in." 

Garrus shakes his head. "We'll put together a team," he says, a light in his eyes she hasn't seen since he was on the _Normandy_. "Like the - like our old squad," he adds, directing this to her. "We start hitting the gangs, good people will join up." 

Well. She'd said he had to find someone to work with, but this is certainly more ambitious than she'd been expecting. More likely to keep him alive, too, if he can pull off recruitment. 

"Okay," says Sidonis, somewhat less skeptical now. "Got a name?" 

"Angels," says Garrus. 

"God, I can tell you have no idea what they are, it sounds too fluffy," says Ashley. Still fitting, considering how he's looked after her since he found her on the Citadel, but fluffy. "At least use Archangel. One of those was a commander." 

"Archangel, then," he says, with a grin. "Let's try it."

  

The apartment they rent here is even smaller than Garrus's Citadel studio, which should work for him once Ashley returns to work, but for now is a tight fit not unlike their rides to Omega. At least it has a tiny window for her to look out of on an alleyway.

Garrus joins her, but can't see what's happening below. "What are you thinking?" he asks.

"I'm thinking that's definitely a drug deal down there," she says, pointing out the window; he squeezes in next to her to look. "But I'm also thinking your plan's... ambitious. You're gonna have to figure out where those gangs hurt before you can hurt them there."

"We've got some clues from Sidonis," he says. "And that's the kind of thing I was pretty good at in C-Sec, even with all the red tape."

So he'll be even more effective here. Ashley nods, and leans into his side. "I'm just worried about you," she says. "You came here to end a drug supply line, and now you're talking about taking out the top gangs on a station full of crime. I don't want to lose you to this."

"You won't."

"You can't promise that," she says.

"Okay, fine, it's not a promise, but -"

He finishes that sentence by leaning down and kissing her, and she freezes. It's not like she hasn't felt - a pull between them lately, solidifying from the inner warmth he'd always sparked in her. But she certainly didn't have any plans to do anything about it, given that she's going back to work, and she definitely didn't expect Garrus to.

After a moment, he pulls back, looking stricken. "Shit, sorry."

"I didn't think turians kissed," she blurts out stupidly.

"I dated an asari once," he said. "I picked it up."

"What happened to not being into humans?"

"Maybe just one human," he says. "But I shouldn't have -"

Shaking her head, Ashley silences him with a kiss. She never thought she'd willingly kiss a turian, but then, she also never thought she'd encourage a vigilante to get started on Omega, so this place is full of firsts. Besides, it's not like Garrus is just any turian, not any more. He's her friend, he's maybe a little something more, he's -

He's kissing her back, pulling her closer, burying his talons in her hair, kissing her until they're both breathless, and then he presses his forehead against hers to keep her close and it's a little weird but she finds she likes it.

"That's why I'm going to try and stay alive for you," he says. "So you don't lose me. This isn't a 'die trying' mission."

She bites her lip. It's very flattering, a little romantic, and a little worrying that he doesn't see life in general or his family or anything else as worthy of his continued survival. "You know what, I'll take it."

This close, she really notices the clarity of the blue in his eyes as he smiles. "I wanted to do that when you first said you'd come with me. Well, maybe longer, but that was the first time I wanted to in the moment."

"I never thought about it that specifically," she admits. "I just... wanted you _there_."

"Then stay with me."

"My work," she protests, at the same time trying to remember the date she enlisted and figuring out if she qualifies for any more leave or sabbatical or anything. "Look - I'll think about it, okay?"

She thinks about it while they make their first strike on a gang operation (planned with surgical precision that's kind of scary and kind of hot), and when they go out for celebratory drinks, and when a salarian explosives expert asks around for Archangel because he wants to join up. She thinks about it as they work on their next raid, and when they gear up for the attack, and when the batarian they're buying gear from wants in.

She thinks about it as she reads the requirements for sabbatical applications and realizes she can't get it together in time for this round.

"You _are_ pretty amazing," Garrus says, stroking her hair as she lies with her head in his lap to tell him. "It would be unfair of me to keep you from the galaxy. Even though you could do so much good here."

"I know," she says. "But I'll visit you on shore leave, okay?"

"You'd better."

Sitting up, she kisses him, soft and sweet. "I feel a lot better knowing I'm not leaving you alone out here. I think Sensat and Vortash are going to be great additions to the team."

"Yeah, they're just no you."

He's clingier in bed that night, and if she's honest so is she, and for the first time since they got together, they let that touch spiral lower, harder, until Garrus is retrieving things from a cupboard she can't reach.

The first night's exploratory. The second, they put last night's learnings into practice. The third, the night before Ashley's set to ship out, is more intense in the moment and then so much sweeter in the afterglow.

"Should've made a move earlier," she murmurs, lying boneless in his embrace. "Or, well, should have realized earlier."

He chuckles. "Yeah, one of us should have. But I'm glad we got this."

"You still glad?" she asks in the morning, back at the Omega docks. For the last week she's enjoyed the relative anonymity of the station, where no one recognizes her name or face and judges her purely by her actions instead of those of her grandfather; she can feel that anonymity starting to slip already.

"Definitely," he says, brushing her hair behind her ear. "And look, now you have some new experience to bring back with you."

"Experience that I can't talk about," she points out. She tiptoes to approach his height. "Here - kiss for luck."

She pecks him on the cheek, and he smiles. "I admit my knowledge of human traditions is limited to a few vids, but I thought kisses for luck are usually a bit more than that," he says. "Omega's pretty big; I need all the luck I can get."

"Smartass," she grumbles, but kisses his mouth anyway.

He's smiling when she pulls away. "This isn't goodbye, Ash: It's see you later."

"I will," she says. "And if you ever take a break from Omega, find me."

"A break in this place," he says skeptically, until she whacks his arm. "You know I will."

The shuttle sets down, and Ashley joins the queue. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

  

Omega's different when she eventually returns on shore leave. It takes a while for her to pin it down: More children, fewer people who look half starved, less fear, almost hope. There are murmurs of Archangel, of praise for the mysterious turian and his team that make her smile as she walks past, tapping on her omni-tool.

` Hey, Archangel. I'm back. Love what you've done with the place. Need another hand? `


End file.
